NCP chief Sharad Pawar made it clear that he wants the parties’ performance in the 2004 assembly elections.
Just days ahead of the commencement of seat-sharing negotiations with the Congress for the assembly elections due in October, NCP chief Sharad Pawar outlined the broad parameters of their likely alliance in the state. In an interaction with DNA, he made it clear that he wants the parties’ performance in the 2004 assembly elections, and not the 2009 Lok Sabha poll results, to be the benchmark for seat-sharing. Failure to do this could lead to a breakdown of the alliance, indicated Pawar, saying “the entire alliance structure in the state will change”.
Pawar, however, was confident that things would not come to such a pass. “The Congress leadership has communicated to me that it is in favour of contesting the elections together and continuing with the pattern of the last 10 years,” he said.
A section of the Maharashtra unit of the Congress has been demanding that seat-sharing should be on the basis of the LS poll results, which reflect the new ground realities in the state, and not on the performance at the last assembly elections. In the 2004 assembly elections,
the Congress had contested 166 seats and won 69 as against the NCP’s 71 wins from 122 contested. However, in the LS polls, the NCP won only 8 of the 21 seats it
contested in the state; the Congress won 17 of 26.
Pawar’s argument is that though the Congress won more seats in the LS elections, there was little to choose in terms of vote share and percentage of votes polled by the two parties.
“The Congress got 7,180,000 votes and 19.8 per cent of the votes while we got 7,140,000 votes and 19.4 per cent of the vote share,” he pointed out.
Having been in power for ten years in the state, Pawar felt the Cong- NCP alliance has proven effective. “Together we have about 39 per cent of the vote compared to 35 per cent of the Sena-BJP,” he said. “If we contest together will be comfortably placed, and if we do not, you don’t have to be an expert to predict the results.”
The Raj Thackeray factor would be critical for cutting into the Sena-BJP vote bank, he said. “Raj will play the spoiler… in the Lok Sabha elections, he has benefited the UPA in at least 8-10 seats in the state,” said Pawar.
Though Pawar ruled out the possibility of the NCP returning to the Congress party’s fold - “the youngsters are not keen on the idea of a merger” — he did admit that the party was “now improving”. He was generous in his praise for both prime minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for giving each other the functional autonomy to run the government and the organisation successfully. Pawar was also appreciative about the space and freedom given to him to function independently. “In all these years, there has not been one occasion in which they have tried to impose anything on me,” he said.
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